Mr. Brown Versus

Let me say this right now: I love seeing movies with predominately African-American casts. There aren't enough movies out there which center on the black community and our struggles. I wish more studios took a chance on making more films based around black families because it can make bank at the box office (See: Lee Daniels' The Butler ). Having said that, The Best Man Holiday is one of the year's worst movies, and of all the films that will end up on my list (which is coming next month), this one is probably the hardest for me to put on there. I honestly wanted to like this movie, but this sequel to the 1999 hit, The Best Man had everything that drives me insane about comedy-dramas: poor screenwriting, characters making implausible and dumb decisions because the plot demands it, cliché after tired, predictable cliché, and the religious themes that contain all the subtly of a brick to the face. It's not the anti-comedy that is the contemptible and vile  Movie 43 ...

Phase II of the Marvel Cinematic Universe began where the first phase started: with Tony Stark and his advanced suit of armor, this time battling the Mandarin in Iron Man 3 earlier this summer. I thought it was a great kickoff to begin the next slate of films that will, inevitably, bring them back together for The Avengers: Age of Ultron , which is due out in 2015. However, a major question arises for the studio: Outside of Robert Downey Jr. playing Iron Man and Joss Whedon's bringing together all these superheroes from the same shared movie universe, how well can Marvel Studios do without relying on either, financially? The answer is, apparently, pretty solid. The sequel to 2011's Thor , featuring Chris Hermswoth as the Prince of Asgard, has already grossed $337 million worldwide and will eventually top it's predecessor's final tally of $447 million by the end of November. Sure, Thor: The Dark World didn't break the Box Office records like Iron Man 3 did with i...

I've seen hundreds of movie trailers before. I've seen funny trailers for movies. I've seen trailers that scream Oscar-bait. I've seen trailers containing crude and grotesque violence that I can't help but under who would be interested in watching the equivalent of a snuff film. I haven't seen anything like the trailer to Nymphomaniac . If you're familiar with the project, chances are that you've either heard from sites like The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline that the film will depict scenes of hardcore graphic sex and sex acts, or follow the career of Danish auteur/provocateur Lars von Trier. Before reading the stories of what von Trier id doing for his latest drama, I've actually seen some of his work, mainly the two movies from his "Depression" trilogy: Anti-Christ , and Melancholia . I'll go into both those film in later reviews, but judging from what I've seen, and from reading the reviews from his other works on Rotten To...

Before I begin this review, let me state that this review is purely about the merits of the film, and not about what I think about it's author, Orson Scott Card. Yes, I paid money to see the big-screen adaptation of his influential sci-fi novel and like I said earlier , if you end up boycotting the film because you feel that you'd be giving money to an unrepentant homophobe, that's your decision and I don't begrudge you from doing what you feel is morally right in your mind. Ender's Game looks fantastic. The visual effects are quite impressive as we are immersed in this futuristic world where Earth is on the verge of another attack from an alien race known as the Formics which, but unsuccessfully, tied to colonize the planet in 2086. Fearing that the Formics will try to make another advance, Col. Graff (Harrison Ford) and Maj. Gwen Anderson recruit Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield of 2011's Hugo ), a bright cadet in the military space program. He is taken to Bat...

A few weeks back, a heinous crime was committed at the AMC Fashion Valley 18. At 4:20 pacific time, a small audience, myself included, witnessed the brutal slaughter of a beloved literary author and playwright and his most famous work. The victim's name was William Shakespeare and the work was Romeo & Juliet, the world-famous romantic drama about a pair of star-crossed lovers from feuding families who fall in love and vow to be together, but violent and disastrous events threaten to destroy both the lovebirds, but both families as well. The culprits are director Carlo Carlei and Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellows ( Godsford Park ), and Relativity Media, the independent film studio that released this piece of crap. Where do I even begin with this one!? Let's start with comparing lines from the original text, to the dialogue in the film adaptation. Take Romeo as he engages with his cousin, Benvolio, in a conversation about how lovesick the poor bastard is (Act I, S...